Re: I for one welcome this new religion
I for one welcome this new religion
The advantages:
1) Don't try to cling to control of schools, seats in the house of lords etc. to perpetuate their world view
I think you'll find the religion you mock was the one which *started* these schools because it views education as important. It also views politicians as susceptible to corruption and has been an important counterbalance to the knee-jerk, soundbite politics which have been destroying our freedoms over the last several governments. If anything, the churchmen in the Lords need criticising for not doing enough to protect the "orphans, widows and strangers in the land."
2) So far at least, not at all bothered by people's sexuality
Nope, not bothered by other people's sexual behaviour. I am irritated by other people ordering me around in terms of what I should approve of, how I raise my children and redefining words to give them new meanings as a form of social engineering, but I'm not really bothered by what they do at home.
3) Absolutely no idiotic dogma about 'the role of women in society'
You mean as the hub of industry and commerce, social work? Worth more than rubies, should be listened to by everyone, worthy of honour? (Proverbs 31:10-31) Perhaps you mean the fact that husbands are to love them to the point of sacrificing themselves for their wives good? (Ephesians 5:25)
4) The religious claims about reality are at least rooted in fact some of the time. The Jesus phone really does exist, for example, which is more than can be said of the usual subject of worship in religious cults.
You think Jesus never existed? You might want to go and have a chat to Dawkins about that.
5) We are still allowed to have a bit of a giggle about the adherents of this religion without them going all po-faced and strutting around demanding respect.
Giggle, giggle if you want to. ;) I have yet to find another philosophical system which can provide a coherent, logical justification for being nice. If you think humans are naturally good, look at Syria and Kenya today; Cambodia, Russia and America in the past; China the UK and pretty much every country. Christianity says that people are made "in the image of God," which implies a great deal of respect. It is the non-christians who suggest that people are just animals.
6) Nobody in this religion yet seems the desire to relieve other people of their freedom or life in pursuit of their religious views.
(Wind history forward a hundred years, and perhaps the religion will have developed to be as tedious as many others, perhaps.
If you read the bible, you'd find it says to tell people why and how God is good and if they won't listen, shake the dust off your feet and move on. Anything else isn't christian. I do notice that a couple running a B&B received death-threats from (presumably) non-christians because they wouldn't specifically support behaviour they disapproved of. Intolerance does indeed appear to be on the rise. You can do as you wish, but don't ask me to support you.
No really, I don't welcome new religions. They tend to be rubbish and far more degrading than the old one.
/grumpy-rant
(I know, it was probably supposed to be a funny, trolling post, but ignorant piety deserves some response, or else it is just an advert for ignorance.)